‘Tell Me A Story’ Season 2 Episode 3: Why Tucker is a psychopath who is addicted to stalking and kidnapping
Spoilers for ‘Tell Me A Story’ Season 2 Episode 3, ‘Family Business’
Episode 2 of ‘Tell Me A Story’ Season 2 saw a weird and grotesque parallel of the 'Sleeping Beauty' folklore. Tucker Reed (Paul Wesley), a writer who is engaged to Maddie (Odette Annable), displays a perverse habit. He starts stalking a woman called Olivia Moon (Danielle Campbell). From keeping tabs on her Instagram to following her in person, to even breaking into her home, Tucker seems obsessed with Olivia. At the end of the episode, we see him abduct Olivia and place her in a soundproofed hidden antechamber in his basement.
He keeps her tied up there. In episode 3, we saw more into his psyche. We see that he keeps her locked in. But he’s not abusive towards her. We see that he gets her favorite food. And we see him being absolutely okay with her anger - even finding it understandable. And that makes it more disturbing. He only has one rule: that Olivia never tries to escape. Of course, she does. The first opportunity she gets. But her lack of success shows her a more disturbing side of Tucker - much more than stalking, sedating, kidnapping, and then keeping her against her will. When he catches her in the act, he loses his temper. And in his anger, he shows her what he is capable of.
He shows her two white rose bushes that he has been tending to since the first episode. He says that he loves those bushes so much, he named them Melanie and Kate. He then warns her that should she push him again, he would be forced to grow a third bush called Olivia.
This shows two things; one, he has done this before, which explains why he is so good at it. Two, he has murdered two women, presumably named Kate and Melanie. But more than this dark and disturbing revelation, this episode offers a deeper look into why he does what he does, albeit very subtly. In the first couple of episodes, we see that Tucker is going through writer’s block. He is unable to sleep. He is unable to be himself. This in turn causes professional and personal setbacks. Maddie is unable to relate to him which causes fights. On the professional end, his publishers seemed unhappy with his work.
But in the aftermath of capturing Olivia, he was visibly writing again, and with a certain gusto and confidence. We also see him be better towards Maddie. In fact, the two end up having sex at a party. And if we remember the previous episode, Tucker seemed to be facing some difficulty in that department as well. We also can see that Tucker has no apparent sexual or emotional interest in Olivia. All he does is observe her in her captivity. So, it is as good a guess as any that this ritual of stalking, kidnapping, and capturing women is a kind of drug for him. He is only able to function when he is jonesing for a fix (in this case, the lady in the basement). And he is only able to write when he has a captive to stare at. And he is only able to perform sexually when he knows that he has someone overpowered waiting in his basement.
‘Tell Me A Story’ is a dark tale with many dark and insidious characters. But Tucker seems to be the one that is the most complex and scary one. New episodes of ‘Tell Me a Story’ Season 2 air every Tuesday at 9 pm ET, only on The CW.
